1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method for managing position independent code using a software framework. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for loading position independent plug-ins into a processor's local memory in time for use with upcoming data in order to hide memory latency.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer systems are becoming more and more complex. The computer industry typically doubles the performance of a computer system every 18 months (e.g. personal computer, PDA, gaming console). In order for the computer industry to accomplish this task, the semiconductor industry produces integrated circuits that double in performance every 18 months. A computer system uses integrated circuits for particular functions based upon the integrated circuits' architecture. Two fundamental architectures are 1) microprocessor-based and 2) digital signal processor-based.
An integrated circuit with a microprocessor-based architecture is typically used to handle control operations whereas an integrated circuit with a digital signal processor-based architecture is typically designed to handle signal-processing manipulations (i.e. mathematical operations). As technology evolves, the computer industry and the semiconductor industry realize the importance of using both architectures, or processor types, in a computer system design.
The computer industry is moving towards a multi-processor architecture that typically includes a main processor and one or more support processors. The main processor typically executes a main operating system, and invokes application programs. In turn, the application programs use the support processors for offloading highly computational tasks, whereby the support processors typically retrieve plug-ins in order to perform the task.
A challenge found when a processor loads a program is that addresses are required to change within the program that call plug-ins in order to ensure that pointers have a correct offset to access the plug-ins. Changing plug-in addresses require more processing time, and when multiple programs access a particular plug-in, each program may have a different address that corresponds to the plug-in.
In addition, another challenge found is that latency results when a processor loads a plug-in from main memory and applies the plug-in to data. The data sits in the processor's memory while the processor retrieves the plug-in from main memory, wasting valuable processing time.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method for eliminating program address changing steps and minimizing plug-in loading latency in order to increase a computer system's throughput performance.